THE MAGAZINE OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
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RANK AMONG PRIVATE GRADUATE ENGINEERING PROGRAMS IN THE U.S.*
EMBRACING THE POWER OF CONVERGENCE AND COLLABORATION.
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RANK IN RESEARCH EXPENDITURES PER FACULTY MEMBER AMONG PRIVATE ENGINEERING SCHOOLS*
TOP 12% OF ENGINEERING SCHOOLS IN THE U.S.*
$153 MILLION IN ENGINEERING-RELATED RESEARCH EXPENDITURES
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RANK AMONG ALL GRADUATE ENGINEERING PROGRAMS IN THE U.S.*
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INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH CENTERS 11 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF INVENTORS FELLOWS
Investing in America’s Future
BY DEAN AD INTERIM ELISE MORGAN
Shortly after arriving in Washington, the new administration began withholding research funding from many research universities and has since fired thousands of people working at government agencies that fund university research. These actions threaten America’s economy and standing in the world.
For decades, American universities and the federal government have partnered to produce life-changing discoveries, not just in medicine but transportation, communication, water and air quality, nutrition, security, and more. In this partnership, hatched shortly after World War II, the government provides funding to university researchers through a highly competitive review process, and researchers use that funding to carry out projects for the public good. Disrupting this compact will upend our country’s prosperity and quality of life.
There are two agencies that fund the bulk of research at Boston University
College of Engineering and many other engineering schools around the country: the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NIH funds health-related research that has been critical in advancing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, heart disease, and other conditions. More than 99 percent of all medications approved by the FDA from 2010 to 2019 were developed through NIHfunded research. American life expectancy has increased six years since 1970—largely through NIH-funded research. The economic impact of NIH dollars is clear: NIH funding supports jobs in every state and is estimated to generate $2.56 in new economic activity for every $1 spent.
In our Biomedical Engineering department, Professor Ed Damiano used NIH funding to develop the bionic pancreas, a wearable device that mimics the natural pancreas, adjusting blood glucose levels up or down every few minutes in type 1 diabetics. His device is now commercially available through a company he founded.
NSF primarily funds fundamental, or “basic science,” research in a wide array of scientific disciplines. Although fundamental research is not tailored towards immediate application, the discoveries and innovations it produces have shaped the world we know today. Artificial intelligence, 3D printing, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and semiconductors are just a few examples of industries that were built on foundations produced through decades of NSF-funded research. These products and industries employ hundreds of thousands of people, bring new products and technologies to consumers, and enhance America’s standing as a global leader and economic powerhouse.
Distinguished Professor of Photonics and Optoelectronics Emeritus Theodore Moustakas is widely known as an inventor of the blue LED, a critical component in smartphone screens, laptops, tablets, and other devices that we interact with every day. His research was funded in part by the NSF.
Like the bionic pancreas, the complexity behind the technology and manufacturing of blue LEDs and other revolutionary inventions necessitated decades of research, often by hundreds of researchers
The research funding partnership between the federal government and universities has produced dramatic improvements in our health, safety, and quality of life.
at many different universities. For this reason, the private sector is not equipped to take on what the US government has long recognized as the essential job of funding university research.
Research funding comes in two forms, direct and indirect. Both are indispensable. Direct costs pay the stipends of student researchers, supply costs, and other projectspecific needs. Indirect costs, also known as facilities and administrative costs, pay for items that are not allocated on a projectspecific basis, such as research lab utilities and the staff responsible for maintenance and safety. Universities already shoulder some of the burden of facilities and administrative costs, but the federal government must do the rest and continue funding direct costs. Otherwise, the pace of innovation will falter.
As the pages of this magazine show, every day our faculty and students engage in research that is in the public interest. This research is funded by the NIH, the NSF, and other federal agencies such as the Department of Defense and Department of Energy. Cuts to federal research funding imperil the next generation of scientists and engineers at a time when the demand for their skills is at an all-time high.
The research funding partnership between the federal government and universities has produced dramatic improvements in our health, safety, and quality of life. Sustaining this partnership is necessary to ensure our nation’s continued prosperity for many years to come.
NSF Grant to Help BU PhD Students Tackle Climate Change
$3 MILLION OVER FIVE YEARS FOR MULTIDISCIPLINARY EFFORTS TO CONVERT AND STORE RENEWABLE ENERGY
If the extreme heat and droughts, catastrophic flooding, and devastating wildfires of recent years have proven anything, it’s that the world needs better solutions for sustainable energy in order to help combat the damaging effects of climate change.
That’s why the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a Boston University team led by Associate Professor Malika Jeffries-EL (Chemistry, MSE) a five-year, $3 million NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) grant to help PhD students collaborate across disciplines to develop new ways to
convert and store sustainable energy. The award will create a new training program that unifies resources in engineering, chemistry, computer science, and data sciences to provide participating students with a broad exposure to energy-related issues.
Along with Jeffries-EL, the project’s coprincipal investigators are ENG faculty Associate Professor Emily Ryan (ME, MSE), Assistant Professor James Chapman (ME), and Associate Professor Brian Kulis (ECE), plus College of Arts & Sciences Professor of Chemistry and Computing & Data Sciences David Coker.
The NRT Research Traineeship grant is a collaborative award between BU’s Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS) and the Rafik B. Hariri Center for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering. (NRT grants are intended to assist graduate students in developing the skills, knowledge, and competencies needed to pursue a range of STEM careers.)
Jeffries-EL, who joined the CAS faculty in 2016, says that most scientists, herself included, begin their careers so focused on their own disciplines that they struggle to think and look outside their research silos. Climate change, she says, is simply too big, too broad, too daunting to continue
The world needs better solutions for sustainable energy in order to help combat the damaging effects of climate change.
approaching it in isolation. It is expected that over the NRT program’s five years, 100 to 125 BU PhD students will participate in the training.
“We are at a point where we need to be intentional with problems we are tackling,” Jeffries-EL says. “It’s all interconnected. These are complicated problems, and it requires an interdisciplinary approach and interdisciplinary science.”
The grant will help PhD students collaborate across disciplines to develop new ways to convert and store sustainable energy.
upfront
And getting PhD students involved in the work is critical.
Jeffries-EL says the grant is important because it will allow PhD students, just starting out in their research, to immediately learn to think outside of their field. “We are going to catch them at the beginning. This is an intricate part of their training. If they make it all the way through graduate school [without doing interdisciplinary research], they won’t think they need to think this way. We will breed them to think about interdisciplinary research from the start.”
If chemists and data scientists and engineers and biologists all start approaching the problem of climate change and sustainable energy by thinking together, rather than as individuals, Jeffries-EL says, the possibilities are endless.
“We are teaching students to think bigger to take on bigger challenges,” she says. “We have to encourage students to be bold and think big, and that you might fail, but that’s okay, because you will learn as you go.”
An associate director of IGS, Ryan says society needs cleaner energy storage and generation technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and overcome the challenges brought about by climate change.
“The next generation of scientists and engineers will require a multidisciplinary background and perspective to develop the energy systems of tomorrow,” Ryan says. “We will partner with BU’s Institute for Global Sustainability to provide students a broader education in energy and climate change that includes not only the technical aspects, but also incorporates health, justice, policy, and more to positively impact society. The cutting-edge technology research at BU along with the diverse expertise of IGS will provide students a unique education that would not be possible elsewhere.”
As an example of how an interdisciplinary approach could work, she points to BU’s new Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences.
“Everybody is benefiting from data science,” Jeffries-EL says. “Some are more attentive to what it might do for them. If we can think about how we can leverage data science in many different fields, that will help people have the right mindset around this. It’s all about getting people to think differently from the start.”
The reason sustainable energy research is so important, Jeffries-EL says, is that
with so much attention focused on creating and growing new energy sources, from wind to solar, there needs to be an equal amount of time spent on finding ways to harness those new sources of renewable energies.
“We need to be more mindful about how we use energy, and how we store energy. I was fortunate to find like-minded people with the same interest. We can create all the energy in the world, but if we can’t store it in batteries or in some other way, it’s useless. How do you harness the energy, and store and transport it?”
One lesson learned from the work of the BU Institute for Global Sustainability, Jeffries-EL says, “is that we can come up with the coolest technology in the world, but if no one trusts it, it will sit on the shelf.”
The new grant is the second time in two years that BU researchers have been awarded an NSF Research Traineeship grant. In 2023, a $3 million grant went to “A Convergent Training Program on Biological Control,” codirected by Elise Morgan, ENG dean ad interim, and Mary Dunlop, an ENG associate professor. Their work is aimed at training a diverse group of PhD students for the workforce in biotech, synthetic biology, manufacturing, robotics, sustainability, and other sectors.
— DOUG MOST
LEFT TO RIGHT:
CYDNEY SCOTT,
CYDNEY SCOTT, DANA J. QUIGLEY, COURTESY OF COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Malika Jeffries-EL (Chemistry, MSE)
Emily Ryan (ME, MSE)
James Chapman (ME)
Brian Kulis (ECE)
Distinguished ENG Alumni Honored
AWARDS GO TO BIOINFORMATICS PIONEER
RHONDA HARRISON (ENG’98,’04, GRS’04) AND ASTRONAUT BOB HINES (ENG‘97)
In a ceremony at Boston University’s Robotics and Autonomous Systems Teaching & Innovation Center (RASTIC) last fall, Dean Ad Interim Elise Morgan conferred the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award on two College of Engineering alumni in recognition of their impact on their professions and communities.
“Rhonda Harrison and Bob Hines exemplify the college’s mission of developing Societal Engineers,” Morgan told an audience of about 100 members of the BU ENG community. “They have not only excelled in their fields but have also made a profound impact on BU and society as a whole.”
Harrison (ENG’98,’04, GRS’04), the first woman and the first Black person to earn a PhD in bioinformatics in the United States, helped to establish the field of multiomics, which has transformed how scientists predict protein-protein interactions and their links to disease. She developed the first fruit fly genetic database and contributed to the ENCODE pilot project, a design for (RNA) microarray technology used widely in industry today.
At MIT, Harrison worked on AI-guided precision medicine and pioneered technologies that are now widely used in genomics research and drug development. As founder of Biopharmix, she has supported drug discovery teams and continues to drive innovation in biotech.
Beyond Harrison’s professional achievements, said Morgan, “She is a passionate advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, using her experiences to break barriers and help the next generation overcome the same hurdles. She continues to inspire others by fostering diversity in STEM workplaces and mentoring students.”
Hines (ENG’97) is a NASA astronaut who has orbited the Earth on the International Space Station (ISS). After earning his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from BU, Hines joined the US Air Force, flew 76 combat missions in the Middle East, earned a master’s degree, and became a research pilot, flying test planes such as a C-9 jet modified to fly a parabola.
In 2017, NASA accepted Hines into the astronaut program. After five years of rigorous training, he piloted a mission 250 miles up to the ISS. There, he and three crewmates monitored 250 science experiments in microgravity, robotics, hydroponics, and other fields.
“Bob connected with the BU community in a memorable way—broadcasting live from the International Space Station while wearing his BU Terriers jersey,” said Morgan. “Bob’s journey from BU to the ISS
has undoubtedly sparked new dreams in the next generation of engineers and scientists.”
Following the awards presentation, Morgan and Tye Brady (ENG’90), chief technologist at Amazon Robotics and a member of the ENG Dean’s Advisory Board, held a Q&A on the future of robotics.
Student leaders then presented posters and discussed their research projects with alums. Student clubs represented at the event included BU Gliding & Soaring, BU Mars Rover Club, BU Rocket Propulsion Group, Terrier Motorsport, BU Unmanned Vehicles, BU Baja, and the BU chapters of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and Society of Women Engineers. — ENG STAFF
Rhonda Harrison (ENG’98,’04, GRS’04) receives the award from Dean Ad Interim Elise Morgan.
Bob Hines (ENG’97) with Morgan.
ENG Researchers Earn Ignition Awards
Three ENG teams have earned BU Ignition Awards, conferred annually by BU Technology Development to accelerate the advancement of promising new science and technology. Along with financial support, the awards come with coaching and mentoring from industry veterans
PROCESSING ENCRYPTED DATA IN THE CLOUD
Today, the most private details of our lives— from bank account numbers to medical records—are all in the cloud. Encryption protects that intimate data while it’s stored and in transit, but generally, the data must be unencrypted before it can be processed. For example, when you ask a cloud-based AI like ChatGPT a sensitive question about your health or finances, your query is at its most vulnerable while it is being processed, which is when about 64 percent of cyber attacks occur—representing a loss of about $6 billion a year.
Computer scientists have long known that it’s possible to process data while it’s encrypted, but the technology for doing so is slow and takes 10,000 times longer
than standard processing. Fortunately, Rashmi Agrawal (ENG’17,’23), an ENG research scientist, discovered a way to process encrypted data 1,000 times faster. With Professor Ajay Joshi (ECE), she formed a company, CipherSonic Labs, to commercialize the technology. Their Ignition Award will allow them to expand the technology to commercial cloudcomputing platforms like Amazon Web Services.
MONITORING KIDNEY DIALYSIS IN REAL TIME
Our kidneys keep our body water levels just right, but kidney disease disrupts this natural equilibrium. For roughly half a million Americans afflicted with the disease, dialysis can manually restore this fluid balance while removing toxins from the body via the blood
“Dialysis is a huge lifeline. It’s vital for these patients,” says Associate Professor Darren Roblyer (BME, ECE). “But there’s a problem: It’s not totally clear how much fluid to remove from each patient.” Remove too much water, and the patient can have painful muscle cramps and perilously low blood pressure; remove too little, and the excess fluid can overload the heart, ultimately leading to heart failure.
Now, Roblyer’s lab is developing a device called DialySight that can track a patient’s fluid levels in real time during dialysis. Designed as an anklet, DialySight shines infrared light at a patient’s leg, then measures the reflected light to calculate how much water the tissue contains. In the future, the results could be used to fine-tune the rate and duration of dialysis to ensure that the procedure removes exactly the right amount of fluid.
With support from an Ignition Award, Roblyer has partnered with BU kidney expert Vipul Chitalia, a BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine professor of medicine, to test and refine the device to make it practical and affordable.
NEW HOPE FOR LIVER CANCER
Patients diagnosed with the most common type of liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, face a grim prognosis. Most are diagnosed too late or are too sick to qualify for surgery or a transplant
An ENG team is developing a new way to attack proteins linked with many hepatocellular carcinomas. Their weapon: one of the body’s own proteins, retargeted to break down cancer proteins.
With support from their Ignition Award, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor Mark Grinstaff (BME, Chemistry, MSE, CAMED) and PhD students Brett Tingley (ENG’25) and Kirk Pierce (ENG’21,’26) aim to show that they can program proteins to home in on cancer-causing proteins so that the body can destroy them.
There are thousands of proteins in the human body that have been linked with diseases. For most of these proteins, there are no drugs that target them. Grinstaff and his team hope that their platform can one day be adapted to take on any disease-causing protein. —
KATE BECKER
Ajay Joshi (ECE)
Mark Grinstaff (BME, Chemistry, MSE, CAMED)
Darren Roblyer (BME, ECE)
Societal Engineers Answer the Call
BU CHAPTER OF ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS BRINGS CLEAN WATER TO KENYAN COMMUNITY
If you had to choose between water and school, you would probably choose water. Not long ago, that was the calculus for many children in rural Tinet, Kenya. The Ogiek people who populate the dirt-road region had to walk up to eight miles to and from a shallow stream to fill large buckets with dirty water. This job typically fell to women and children, meaning kids skipped school out of necessity
Community members sought help from Engineers Without Borders (EWB), and the nonprofit’s Boston University chapter answered the call. EWB matches student and professional engineers with underresourced communities around the world. Volunteers travel to remote villages, listen to residents to find out what they need, and leverage their training and expertise to meet those needs with engineering solutions.
In 2020, EWB-BU installed a borehole well and water distribution system in Tinet, the beginning of an ongoing effort. Successive groups of BU students have since returned to Tinet and expanded the program, building a rainwater catchment system at a primary school. They’ve tested soil and water conditions and trained residents to monitor and maintain the system. Year-round, the chapter stays in touch with the community and keeps tabs on the project. The students raise funds in Boston, and coordinate from afar with contractors in Kenya, using those donor dollars to bring surveyors and technicians to Tinet from the nearest towns, hours away.
The latest team of students on the case includes chapter president Vittoria Sama (ENG’25), a biomedical engineering major; fellow board member Clara
“Our primary focus is to provide water to students so that they’re able to continue their education.”
Vittoria Sama (ENG’25)
Armon (ENG’27), also a BME major; and Omar Elhussini (ENG’27), a mechanical engineering major. The trio traveled to Tinet in August 2024 with Professor James Galagan (BME, ECE).
There, they checked up on the rainwater system at the primary school, testing the water for bacteria and inspecting the pipes for cracks. (All was well.) Then they started work on a new borehole well project at another school in the area.
“Our primary focus is to provide water to students so that they’re able to continue their education,” says Sama.
Education matters to the Ogiek people a great deal, the BU students learned. “We couldn’t believe the number of parents and community members that showed up to meet us, considering it was a school break,” Sama says. “They were very focused on this and very committed.”
The Ogiek are a traditional huntergatherer community indigenous to the Mau Forest. But in recent years, the Kenyan government has been evicting thousands of Ogiek from the forest. Many Ogiek now in the neighboring Tinet region have taken up agriculture, especially raising goats and cows.
“They’re very driven,” says Sama. “Some of the kids said they were interested in engineering. Their main goal is to get out, get a higher education, and help their families.”
Those face-to-face conversations are key to the multiyear partnerships that EWB facilitates, with the goal of empowering people by collaborating with them. “We talked to as many people as we could in the community,” says Sama. “We did a bunch of surveys, making sure that we’re meeting their needs.”
The chapter is raising funds to get the new borehole well installed before their next trip to Tinet. Efforts include selling copies of a children’s book about clean water accessibility. Written and illustrated by Armon and other EWB-BU members, the book follows a lion and other animal characters as they collaborate on a solution to water contamination. Visit ewbbu.org/ donations to learn more.
— PATRICK L. KENNEDY
Students at the Ogiek Kwanza Primary School in Tinet, Kenya.
Clara Armon (ENG’27) and Omar Elhussini (ENG’27) with Benson Ngigge, principal of the Ogiek Kwanza Primary School.
Kilachand Awards Support Convergent Research Taking On Biggest Challenges in Life Sciences
In 2024, BU ENG faculty shared the honors as three interdisciplinary projects received awards from the Rajen Kilachand Fund for Integrated Life Sciences and Engineering. Boston University trustee Rajen Kilachand (Questrom’74, Hon.’14) established the fund in 2017 to inspire solutions to some of the biggest challenges in life sciences.
“As we confront the toughest challenges in life sciences and engineering—from heart disease to cancer to neurodegenerative disorders—convergent research teams fueled by strategic University commitments have proven to be powerful engines for advancing fundamental discoveries and catalyzing transformational progress,” says Professor Thomas Bifano (ME, MSE, BME, ECE),
BU vice president and associate provost ad interim for research.
IMPROVED DEFENSES AGAINST VIRUSES
Associate Professor Wilson Wong (BME) coleads a project with Florian Douam, BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine assistant professor of virology, immunology, and microbiology. They seek to combine three technologies, all developed at BU, to solve the design, manufacturing, and delivery challenges of antibodies, potentially creating a powerful and versatile tool that could serve as a first line of defense against a future pandemic. BME faculty Mark Grinstaff (BME, Chemistry, MSE, CAMED), Ahmad (Mo) Khalil (BME), and Alexander Green (BME) are coinvestigators.
Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines showed their potential as critical virus response tools during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they come with limitations, including a lack of immediate antiviral immunity and high dosage requirements. Another antivirus tool, antibodies can provide immediate protection against viral infection (Ebola, for example), but are limited by slow manufacturing processes and logistical access challenges.
Wong, Douam, and their colleagues aim to bring mRNA vaccines and antibodies together so that each retains their benefits while reducing their limitations.
A lab team led by Wong and Grinstaff last year discovered a novel way to modify saRNA, a breakthrough they’ve since used to create a more effective COVID-19 vaccine in collaboration with Douam. Using that capability along with a nanobody discovery platform developed by Khalil could offer what Douam calls “a novel pipeline to discover, develop, and implement preventive and therapeutic tools against viral infection and viral pandemic.” Green designed the computational technology; the Kilachand Fund award will allow the team to build a proof of concept.
From left, Alexander A. Green, Florian Douam, Wilson Wong, Ahmad (Mo) Khalil, and Mark Grinstaff.
TRANSFORMING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE BRAIN
A project led by Professor David Boas (BME, ECE) with Emily Stephen, a College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of statistical neuroscience, and Mike Esterman, a Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine associate professor of psychiatry, seeks to improve our understanding of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results.
A noninvasive way to study human brain function, fMRI illuminates regions of the brain involved in tasks such as language development and reveals differences in brain activity patterns in conditions like depression, schizophrenia, ADHD, and autism. This understanding of the brain’s underlying neural mechanisms has enabled the development of new treatments, but according to Boas and colleagues, we may have been misreading brain scans for years.
By studying the brains of mice, they’ve found the vascular response—how blood vessels react—to neural activity, called neurovascular coupling (NVC), is not constant in time, which has long been assumed when interpreting neuroimaging results. Their results also suggest neuromodulator signaling—a physiological process that modifies and regulates communication between neurons—might be altering NVC.
Because fMRI measures the hemodynamic (blood flow) response to brain activity, “it’s not measuring neural activity directly,” says Boas, an ENG professor of biomedical engineering. “We need to know the relationship between neural activity and the vascular response in order to interpret fMRI. If the vascular response is changing in time, that’s going to potentially alter how we interpret many [neuroimaging] findings.”
With the Kilachand Fund award, the project team aims to expand their research, eventually moving to examine these processes in humans. Their research might also enable new approaches for investigating and
treating conditions ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to migraines.
OVERCOMING ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE
Associate Professor Mary Dunlop (BME), Associate Professor Douglas Holmes (ME, MSE), Professor Harold Park (ME), and Joseph Larkin, a CAS assistant professor of biology and physics, are studying optogenetic techniques—the use of light to influence and control cells—to explore, in real time, how bacteria pass genetic materials between cells. They aim to determine how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, which is a massive global health problem.
“The speed at which drugs are clinically approved is being dramatically outpaced by bacteria’s ability to acquire resistance,” says Dunlop.
The primary way bacteria become resistant to antibiotics is through a process called horizontal gene transfer, which allows bacteria to pass genetic materials (including resistance genes) between cells.
The team proposes using light to trigger the horizontal gene transfer event so that it can be observed in real time. “We can
initiate horizontal gene transfer in one location, and then watch the spread within the community,” says Dunlop.
Existing research on horizontal gene transfer has looked at the population level— analyzing the characteristics of a group of cells to observe average behavior or trends— rather than the individual cell-to-cell level. But according to Dunlop, “These processes are fundamentally happening between cells, and understanding cell-to-cell transfer could tell us a lot about how to counteract the spread of antibiotic resistance via horizontal gene transfer.”
These single-cell-level studies are groundbreaking, especially using optogenetics to control horizontal gene transfer. “I can’t think of anybody else working on it, which means there’s high potential here, and also inherent risk,” says Dunlop. “This award enables our team to develop these ideas and generate proof of principle computational models and experimental tools that will allow us to build a foundation and extend the work.”
— CHUCK LEDDY
David Boas (BME, ECE)
From left, Mary Dunlop, Douglas Holmes, Joseph Larkin, and Harold Park.
Student Team Wins Gold Medal in Paris Competition
PRESENTED NOVEL SOIL MONITOR AT INTERNATIONAL GENETICALLY ENGINEERED MACHINE GRAND JAMBOREE
Aiming to keep heavy metals out of the food we eat, a team of BU undergrads traveled to Paris last fall to pitch a soil monitor they invented, as part of the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Grand Jamboree. The team returned with a gold medal, the highest iGEM honor, showing excellence in biomedical engineering and in three specializations: modeling, hardware, and software.
Some 427 student teams from around the globe competed for awards in more than a dozen categories in what one contestant calls “a giant science fair” focused on synthetic biology. And more than taking home a prize, the Terriers have crafted a novel solu-
tion to a serious public health problem.
Toxic heavy metals from industrial pollution can leach into agricultural soil, eventually winding up in our food. That’s why, for example, Consumer Reports last year urged the USDA to drop Lunchables from the National School Lunch Program after the nonprofit tested the products and found “concerning levels” of heavy metals, such as lead and cadmium.
Current methods of testing soil for such contaminants involve large chemical analysis machines, and the process— sending samples to a far-off lab and awaiting results—is too expensive and time-consuming for many small farmers in under-resourced regions.
Enter AgriNOVA, the BU student team and their device of the same name. Barely bigger than a toaster oven, the tester contains bacteria that have been genetically engineered to light up when they encounter cadmium or manganese. These light signals are picked up by an optical system embedded in the hardware, and the results are displayed on-screen in a user-friendly format.
The goal is to empower farmers to quickly interpret the data and act upon it. (Soil remediation techniques can include proper waste disposal and a reduction in the use of chemical fertilizers.) Ultimately, the AgriNOVA team envisions a farmer being able to deploy a network of the devices to
AgriNOVA team members (from left) Kevin Li (ENG’25, CAS’25), Brenda Kim (CAS’25), Meritxell Ortodo (ENG’26), Trinity Olander (CAS’26), and Abby Smith (ENG’25) (not pictured) demonstrated a novel biosensor that monitors soil for toxic heavy metals.
“This was just the perfect opportunity and example of how biology could be integrated with hardware and electronics, which was really cool, and the team being so diverse was very helpful.”
Meritxell Ortodo (ENG’26)
automatically collect and assess samples from different fields.
“The farmers can use it on-site themselves,” says Trinity Olander (CAS’26), who is majoring in molecular biology. “We want to integrate a mapping system so they can track heavy metals across a farm plot and over time.”
Moreover, the team would like to add more biosensors, widening the scope of the monitor beyond cadmium and manganese. “Both are heavy metals, which are really toxic to the environment and also to people” at high levels, says Minseo (Brenda) Kim (CAS’25), a senior majoring in data science and minoring in biology. “But obviously we’re hoping to expand that to other contaminants, such as lead, mercury, and arsenic.”
Best of all, the students say, their streamlined device would be affordable, making the technology available to the largest number of people. “The goal is overall accessibility, since toxic metals in agricultural soil is such a big threat,” says Kim.
“We were struck by the fact that there were no low-cost alternatives in heavy metal detection,” says Meritxell Ortodo (ENG’26), a biomedical engineering major.
That’s why the team plans to make detailed plans for AgriNOVA publicly available. “We developed a DIY, step-by-step guide, with files for laser-cutting, 3D-printing, and other ways to build the device,”
says Ortodo. “So for farmers, or engineers working with farmers, or even high school students, say, who don’t have access to the labs we do, here’s a low-cost alternative where they can follow the steps to replicate this device exactly.”
The team also includes Abby Smith (ENG’25), a biomedical engineering major and Kilachand Honors College Scholar, and Kevin Li (ENG’25, CAS’25), who is double majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology and in computer science. This interdisciplinary mix has been a boon to the creation of a device that combines optics, microfluidics, mechanics, and genetic engineering.
“This was just the perfect opportunity and example of how biology could be integrated with hardware and electronics, which was really cool, and the team being so diverse was very helpful,” says Ortodo. “There’s a lot of different perspectives that really build on the idea. Everybody is [learning from] and feeding off each other.”
The team was guided by lead Principal Investigator Miguel Jimenez, an ENG assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and secondary PI Hailey Gordon, executive director of STEM Pathways, the STEM outreach program based at BU’s Biological
and teammates designed and built
Design Center (BDC). STEM Pathways sponsors a BU iGEM team each year.
“They achieved all their goals, working hard, collaboratively,” says Gordon, who also points out that the students benefited from the resources in BDC, such as the DAMP Lab for the biology work, and the CIDAR Lab for the hardware. “I don’t think we’d be able to do the project without either one of those labs’ support,” she says.
The undergrads also consulted with grad student mentors and industry professionals from two farm tech companies, Farmblox and Talam Biotech, to better understand the needs of farmers as well as modern approaches to soil management.
In addition to presenting their own work at the Paris event, the BU students spent a few days circulating through the expo’s 14 halls, or “villages,” devoted to different categories, such as diagnostics, space, and biomanufacturing. That’s part of the value, and the excitement, of such a large gathering of young synthetic biology researchers, the team says—although iGEM is a competition, it’s also about networking and advancing science. “We’re making connections and learning about other people’s projects,” Olander says. “It’s building a community.”
— PATRICK L. KENNEDY
Ortodo
a prototype of their agricultural soil monitor in labs at BU’s Biological Design Center.
Dunlop, Holmes, and Stringhini Earn ENG Honors
Dean Ad Interim Elise Morgan has announced that three mid-career faculty members have been named Distinguished Faculty Fellows.
Associate Professor Mary Dunlop (BME) has been awarded the Dorf-Ebner Distinguished Faculty Fellowship. “Mary’s contributions to graduate and undergraduate education at Boston University and to the field of synthetic biology as a researcher, mentor, teacher, and leader are exemplary,” Morgan wrote in an email to the ENG community.
Spanning 58 peer-reviewed publications, Dunlop’s research combines synthetic biology, optogenetics, deep learning, feedback, and quantitative modeling to understand and control bacterial systems. Her discoveries include genes involved in transient antibiotic resistance and novel mechanisms that generate heterogeneity in gene expression. She has developed new optogenetic tools for single-cell studies in bacteria and engineered microbes to produce biologically derived replacements for many chemical products.
An AIMBE Fellow, Dunlop has received a DoE Early Career Award, NSF CAREER Award, and other national honors. At BU, where Dunlop is associate chair for BME graduate research programs, she has earned the ENG
Teaching Excellence Award and the ENG Faculty Service Award.
“It’s an honor to be selected as the Dorf-Ebner Distinguished Faculty Fellow,” Dunlop says. “I am excited to use this opportunity to advance my group’s research in synthetic biology and feedback control. I also appreciate the award’s emphasis on teaching, mentorship, and leadership, and I am excited to continue my efforts in these areas to support the next generation of engineers.”
Associate Professor Gianluca Stringhini (ECE) received the ENG Distinguished Faculty Fellowship in recognition of his work using data-driven approaches to better understand malicious activity online and developing better techniques to keep users safe. “Gianluca’s impact across research, teaching, and service at BU and to the profession is simply outstanding,” Morgan wrote.
Focusing on malware, online fraud, spam, and other digital harms, Stringhini has helped take down online criminal operations. Combining techniques from signal processing, image processing, machine learning, and computational social science, he has developed novel mitigation techniques and leading methods of measuring and modeling disinformation and other online problems that affect society.
Appearing in more than 150 peerreviewed publications, Stringhini’s research has been featured in the BBC, the New York Times, and other major news outlets. He has received several NSF grants, including an NSF CAREER Award. At BU, where he is also affiliated with the Computing & Data Sciences program, Stringhini has earned ENG’s ECE Teaching Award.
“I’m very honored to receive this fellowship,” says Stringhini. “I know that the selection was quite competitive, and I’m grateful to the college for it. I will use the funds to support my research on developing mitigations for sociotechnical cybersecurity problems.”
Associate Professor Douglas Holmes (ME, MSE) earned the Theo de Winter Distinguished Faculty Fellowship. “Doug’s contributions in research, teaching, advising, mentoring, and service have been extraordinary,” wrote Morgan.
Holmes’ research seeks to understand and control how structures undergo large shape changes. His work largely focuses on slender structures and soft materials— from airplane wings and transatlantic cables to blood vessels and human hair—which commonly exhibit large deformations. He has made critical insights into how to morph two-dimensional shapes into three-dimensional shells and developed soft material grippers and actuators inspired by kirigami.
The recipient of multiple Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency grants and an NSF CAREER Award, Holmes’ work has appeared in more than 47 peer-reviewed publications, garnering around 2,500 citations. His roles at BU have included serving as ENG’s interim associate dean for outreach and diversity.
“It’s particularly special to be recognized with the de Winter award because it is meant to highlight contributions to both teaching and research, and I’ve always seen these as two sides of the same coin,” says Holmes. “Efforts to improve teaching have always improved my research communication, and bringing ideas from the lab to the classroom has always sparked interest and curiosity amongst my students.”
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ENG STAFF
Mary Dunlop (BME)
Doug Holmes (ME, MSE)
Gianluca Stringhini (ECE)
“A Force of Nature”
ENG STUDENT LEADER AWARDED TWO PRESTIGIOUS SCHOLARSHIPS
An undergraduate presenter at the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) annual meeting in Baltimore, student leader Zeynep Haciguzeller (ENG’25) earned two prestigious scholarships this year.
Haciguzeller, a biomedical engineering senior and Kilachand Honors College student, was one of just 253 engineering students nationally—out of 1,328 applicants—selected for the 2024–25 Tau Beta Pi (TBP) Scholarship. TBP, the engineering honor society, recognizes academic achieve-
Putting Play Within Reach
BU STUDENT ENGINEERS ADAPT AND DONATE 100 TOYS TO KIDS WITH DISABILITIES
Achallenge can be fun, but if you’re a kid with limited motor function, an ordinary child’s toy isn’t just challenging; it might be inaccessible. To help out, a team of BU student engineers switchadapted bubble machines and other toys for young children with disabilities. Applying their skills in reverse engineering, soldering, and small parts assembly to this task, the BU Mars Rover Club (BUMRC) added accessibility features to more than 100 toys, which they donated to disabled kids through the nonprofit Easterseals.
“The idea is for them to realize they’re not limited by their disabilities,” says Abdulaziz AlMailam (ENG’24,’26), a master’s student in electrical and computer engineering and BUMRC president.
ment, campus leadership and service, and demonstrated promise of future contributions to the engineering profession through the scholarship.
In addition, Haciguzeller—who plans to pursue a career in research, likely in nanotechnology and synthetic biology—holds a 2024–25 Harold C. Case Scholarship. One of Boston University’s highest distinctions for undergraduates, this scholarship is also granted for academic achievement, potential, and extracurricular leadership.
Haciguzeller works with Associate Professor Wilson Wong (BME) on selfamplifying RNA for the development of longer-lasting vaccines. She also serves as president of the BU Turkish Student Association and is copresident of the BU chapter of the Dream Program, mentoring youngsters in public housing in nearby Allston.
“Zeynep is a force of nature,” says Professor Christopher Chen (BME, MSE), Haciguzeller’s academic advisor and mentor. “Energetic, thoughtful, and committed to pushing her own limits, she has demonstrated a true passion for research. I can’t wait to see what she does as she continues on her journey.”
— PATRICK L. KENNEDY
The club’s raison d’être is designing and building a Mars rover, which they’re entering in the 2025 University Rover Challenge in Utah. But after an assistive technology class at the BU Engineering Product Innovation Center brought the issue of inaccessible toys to the attention of some club members, “We thought, ‘Hey, we have lots of engineers here. Let’s use our resources and adapt as many toys as we can,’” says AlMailam.
The club held a weeklong workshop last spring at BU’s Singh Imagineering Lab, drawing about 50 students from across the University, each adapting two toys under the direction of BUMRC members.
“We reverse-engineer it,” says AlMailam. “It’s basically circuits—you just have to figure out where the button connects and then solder two wires to it.”
The way ordinary toys come out of the factory, their switches are often tiny and hard to find. Switch-adapting involves connecting the original switch to a large, easyto-push auxiliary button. “Think of a young amputee who couldn’t otherwise interact with this CoComelon bubble machine, which plays music and makes bubbles,” says AlMailam. “Well, now they can use their elbow to operate this big, round surface button. Now more people can use it.”
The BUMRC members took inspiration from the BU College of Engineering’s emphasis on the Societal Engineer—professionals who will use their engineering skills to make a positive impact on the world.
“That was a big influence,” says AlMailam. “We said, ‘Hey, there are families that are in need, and we can help them.’”
— PATRICK L. KENNEDY
Zeynep Haciguzeller (ENG’25)
Soud Alkharji (ENG’27) at work in the BUMRC workshop.
EPICATTEN
he whine of a band saw. The sparks flying off a surface grinder. The long list of safety rules—don’t wear baggy clothing, do wear goggles, tie back long hair. And then there are the dizzying, button-packed control panels that conduct the futuristic ballet going on inside the 3D printers and other big, mysterious machines. It can be intimidating to walk into Boston University’s Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC) for the first time.
But spend a little time there, and the people manning those machines will put you at ease—and teach you how to handle the high-tech equipment yourself. “Everybody there is just so kind and helpful and encouraging, it makes you feel like you’re not limited,” says Anya Keller (ENG’24), a former EPIC lab assistant. “EPIC tries to nurture an environment where people feel comfortable coming in and exploring their curiosities and not being afraid to learn the correct ways to use these tools. And when you use them correctly, they’ll treat you well back, and you’ll make something beautiful.”
Celebrating its tenth year in operation, EPIC is a 15,000-squarefoot, multimillion-dollar engineering and manufacturing facility prominently sited on Commonwealth Avenue on BU’s Charles River
FOR A DECADE, THE ENGINEERING PRODUCT INNOVATION CENTER HAS BEEN TURNING OUT PROS WHO CAN HIT THE GROUND RUNNING BY PATRICK L. KENNEDY
Campus. More than a machine shop, it’s a space where engineering students—and all members of the BU community—are invited to gain hands-on experience in design, prototyping, and small-scale manufacturing. Whether for class assignments or extracurricular projects, students have been crafting creations there for a decade, with recent examples including a Braille typewriter, a dual-use utensil for camping, a data-collecting river rover, custom typeface stencils—even a laser-cut chainmail dress.
Under the new directorship of Professor of the Practice Steve Chomyszak (who has for several years taught manufacturing courses out of EPIC), and with the support of industry partners— including PTC, Arrow Electronics, P&G, GE Aerospace, Shark Ninja, and Amazon Robotics—the center recently installed a spate of new equipment and programs. That’s essential to keep the shop up to date, given the center’s mission of training new engineers for the modern workforce.
“EPIC is not a stagnant facility,” says Chomyszak. “It’s constantly improving what it does, so that others can push boundaries further. If we didn’t do that, we’d be making parts out of stone with hammers and chisels.”
On the shop floor at EPIC, students train on the same kinds of 3D printers, laser cutters, waterjet cutters, manual mills, CNC mills, and other machines that they’ll find in the workplace. “We wouldn’t have been able to buy this equipment without those industry partners,” says Chomyszak. “They support us for this purpose: to keep our lab current, keep the technology moving forward, and keep pace with the times, and we strive to do that. It’s expensive to run a place like this, and we could not do it without them.”
GETTING UP TO SPEED
Putting those modern tools in the hands of students, Chomyszak explains, “allows them to complete the cycle from theory to tactile experience.” And the products they create become a portfolio they can point to.
“It’s a blend of giving them self-confidence and competence on these tools,” says Tasker Smith, EPIC lab manager. “Part of that is developing a portfolio, and a huge part of our mission is giving students a pipeline into internships and job opportunities.”
The invisible barrier that newbies might encounter tumbles quickly with the help of Smith, four full-time lab supervisors, and more than 20 lab assistants, who are typically juniors, seniors, and grad students.
“We assume that students walking in are starting at ground zero,” says Chomyszak. “You don’t have to know how to use any of this equipment to come in here. Our staff is trained to help you get up to speed.”
This peer mentoring system turns out to be educational for the assistants as well. “We’re training them to be able to field questions,” says Smith, “but we also tell them, ‘If you get to the limit of your knowledge and you still haven’t answered someone’s question, then grab a lab supervisor, and we’ll all learn together.’ Because they’re also all in their own arcs in learning and developing self-confidence and competence on these tools.”
Even Keller, who already had machining experience from her high school robotics club, learned plenty of new skills during her time at EPIC (as both a lab assistant and a client), including 3D printing, injection molding, sand casting, and more. “I would ask my colleagues for help, because everyone had a different knowledge base and different tools they were more specialized in or familiar with.”
Staff and lab assistants also guide students as they acquire and burnish their skills in computer-aided design (CAD). This is critical, because creating clear engineering drawings is a key first step toward creating a successful product in real life. “The designing and manufacturing processes are interlinked,” says Chomyszak. “You have to understand the manufacturing processes so you can design for them; then you get to push the limits, expand the boundaries, after you have a fundamental understanding of the processes.”
HIT THE GROUND RUNNING
Keller says that the entire EPIC experience, along with Chomyszak’s Manufacturing Processes for Design and Production—“that was the most valuable course I took at Boston University”—combined to make her transition to the workforce an
Students designed and built bagatelles, small pinball games, in which each element was made with a different machine available in EPIC.
easy one. “It allowed me to hit the ground running,” says Keller, who is now a mechanical design engineer at semiconductor giant ASML.
The virtuous cycle whereby lab assistants learn even as they teach extends to the non-engineering students they work with. Smith estimates that up to a quarter of EPIC patrons come from other BU schools, including CFA students building elements of a stage set, CAS students building an architectural model, and Questrom students interested in tech entrepreneurship.
“You improve your own knowledge of these tools when you’re teaching them,” says Keller. “Teaching was one of my greatest joys at EPIC. When someone came in not knowing anything about a certain machine—but they were interested and wanted to learn as much as possible—then they came out being able to create, and you’d helped to make that happen. That was magic.”
Another valuable skill Keller learned at EPIC: “Finding something to do,” she says. On the rare occasions when no students are walking in—and with as many as 1,300 people making 5,500 visits in a semester, downtime is rare indeed—Keller says lab assistants are encouraged to do something. “Sweeping and organizing, putting stuff away—that’s not a remedial task, that’s not beneath you. Building that community of people who care about the shop and want to see it flourish made it a more enjoyable place to work at, and I like to bring that mindset wherever I go.”
Among the new initiatives in this, EPIC’s tenth year, Chomyszak and Smith have been excited to implement a reconfigured floor plan to make teaching and demonstrations easier; extended evening hours to match typical student schedules; and a credentialing program for safety and accountability as well as résumé and portfolio purposes.
Furnishing young engineers with the technical savvy to turn their ideas into reality is key to ENG’s mission, says Smith. “There’s a spirit of encouraging people to use their talents to improve the world and make it a better place. We need skilled engineers to go out and solve problems.”
“I CAN DO THIS!”
BUILDING COMMUNITY AND SUPPORTING ONE ANOTHER: BU’S NATIONAL SOCIETY OF BLACK ENGINEERS
BY PATRICK L. KENNEDY
The world still needs diverse engineers. Without a variety of perspectives in the room, engineers limit themselves and run the risk of hatching incomplete solutions or even harmful technologies, from pulse oximeters that don’t work on Black skin, to facial recognition systems that fail to distinguish Black people.
So more Black students are needed in engineering schools, but the challenges to enrollment and retention haven’t disappeared overnight. That’s why it’s crucial for those students to build community and support one another through college and beyond—and that’s the role the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) plays. Founded in 1975, NSBE’s mission is “to increase the number of culturally responsible Black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally, and positively impact the community.”
“I believe NSBE serves a vital purpose today, particularly given the current political climate and the challenges faced by Black students in higher education,” says Jeremiah Somoine (ENG’27), internal vice president of Boston University’s NSBE chapter—which last year won NSBE’s Region 1 (Northeast) Chapter of the Year award.
The impact of those political headwinds is not imaginary. After the US Supreme Court banned race-conscious admissions, the proportion of Black students enrolled in BU dropped from 9 percent for the Class of 2027 to 3 percent for the Class of 2028. “At BU,
where the Black student population is diminishing, NSBE plays an essential role in creating a space for connection, empowerment, and representation,” says Somoine.
Being a minority in higher education can be an isolating experience. And an already rigorous academic curriculum is all the more challenging for students who are the first in their families to attend college, no matter how much they excelled in high school.
“We have a huge first-generation population,” says Raheeq Ibrahim (CAS’25), president of BU NSBE, which has expanded beyond engineering to encompass computer science and other STEM fields. “They didn’t have STEM mentors in their communities, so if we can provide that for them, that’s pretty important.”
WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER
Every Tuesday evening, around 78 members gather for a BU NSBE study hall in the Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences. (The chapter boasts 156 members.) There, upperclassmen mentor younger students, going over concepts in programming and engineering design, helping them think through problem sets and spreadsheet analysis.
Ibrahim remembers well her first Tuesday night study hall as a freshman. “This was the first time I actually had a community of people who looked like me and were also interested in the same field as me,” she says. Now Ibrahim is one of the seniors paying that
The NSBE 2024/25 executive board. JAIDEN NICHOLSON
mentoring forward. “There have been numerous times when we had to convince our members not to drop out of college or drop out of their major. That’s a big focus. Making sure they know that we’re all in this together, we all struggle sometimes, and that first bad grade on a test, it’s not the end of the world.”
Upperclassmen are in turn mentored by NSBE alumni, and club officers reach out to alumni and other engineering professionals to arrange for students to tour companies and for recruiters to visit campus.
“I am consistently impressed by the maturity and professionalism of the executive board, flawlessly coordinating and running events as well as securing funds for the chapter,” says STEM Pathways Executive Director Hailey Gordon, who is an advisor to BU NSBE. “The chapter is invested in ensuring that all members succeed academically and professionally.”
The e-board also coordinates travel to regional and national NSBE conferences. Last fall, BU NSBE members even attended two conferences the same week—15 members went to the NSBE fall Region 1 conference in Stamford, Connecticut; while another 28 made it to AFROTECH™, a Black-focused tech and investment convention, in Houston.
On top of that, the chapter organizes volunteering and social events, often jointly with other Boston-area NSBE chapters, as well as a networking night in partnership with BU’s chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.
LAUNCHING CAREERS
“I would not have gotten through engineering school if it were not for NSBE,” says Keith Clinkscales (ENG’84), who went on to a long private-sector career in quality assurance management and is today an operational excellence guru and the director of strategic planning and performance management for Palm Beach County,
“I believe NSBE serves a vital purpose today, particularly given the current political climate and the challenges faced by Black students in higher education.” Jeremiah Somoine (ENG’27)
Florida. In his spare time, Clinkscales was instrumental in creating NSBE’s Professionals arm, becoming the first chapter president of what is now NSBE Boston Professionals and eventually serving as national chairperson of NSBE Professionals. He received an NSBE Lifetime Achievement award in 2018.
In addition to those Tuesday night study sessions, the skills workshops, and the camaraderie, Clinkscales counts NSBE conferences as critical. “A conference can be life-changing,” he says. “Somebody might be thinking, ‘I’m going to drop out or switch majors,’ but then they go to their first NSBE conference. When you walk through the convention center doors, you’re seeing all these people of color that are studying engineering. It’s a community of people going through the same struggle as you, and you’re like, ‘I can do this!’”
More than that, conferences provide opportunities for students to meet with industry recruiters. Last year, at least 21 students landed internships or full-time job offers as a direct result of NSBE conferences and networking events. Employers include Netflix, Merck, Pratt & Whitney, Schneider Electric, and Bloomberg.
“That’s why it’s such a big deal for us,” says Ibrahim. “Our members have to make the case for missing class to travel. Is it really that important to go to this conference? Clearly, it is, when a significant number of students come back with job offers.”
Clinkscales can attest to that. “My whole career was launched from NSBE,” he says. As a senior, “I walked away from an NSBE national conference with three offers—no, four,” he says. “And almost all of my friends in NSBE got their jobs the same way,” starting out at top firms like Raytheon, Digital, IBM, and Compaq. “So, through NSBE, I got my first job, I gained leadership skills, I made lifelong friendships,” he adds—and he met his wife, Alyson Clinkscales (ENG’84).
In September, Keith and Alyson Clinkscales returned to BU for Alumni Weekend, and at the BU NSBE reception, Keith spoke about his journey. “His energy was just crazy,” says Ibrahim. “Everybody loved him.”
Returning to his student launching pad as an elder statesman was “surreal,” says Clinkscales. “That was a tearjerker for me.”
From left: Angela Pitter (ENG’85), Alyson Clinkscales (ENG’84), and NSBE Lifetime Achievement Award winner Keith Clinkscales (ENG’84) at BU Alumni Weekend.
IN THE CONVERGENT FIELDS OF OPTICS AND PHOTONICS, RESEARCHERS ARE USING LIGHT IN UNEXPECTED WAYS TO SOLVE COMPLEX PROBLEMS.
BY JESSICA COLAROSSI AND PATRICK L. KENNEDY
e’re beyond the light bulb here. At the BU College of Engineering, photonics and optical systems researchers are collaborating to advance the practical uses of light to tackle global challenges. Working with students and with colleagues in other schools and institutions as well as in industry and government, they’ve developed innovations such as a space telescope—
BU’s first device to land on the moon— aimed at understanding our magnetosphere; a medical device that uses light to monitor blood pressure and track cancer; and a novel 3D imaging technology for autonomous navigation by night. And one ENG researcher—known for demonstrating how tornado-shaped light beams might make for a greener internet— has taken the reins of the leading journal in the optics field. Hailing from biomedical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and mechanical engineering, these researchers are lighting the way forward.
THIS TECHNOLOGY MEASURES THE OPTICAL EFFECTS OF WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR HEART BEATS,” SAYS ROBLYER. EACH TIME YOUR HEART BEATS, BLOOD FLOW SPEEDS UP AND THEN SLOWS DOWN, AND, AT THE SAME TIME, ARTERIES EXPAND AND CONTRACT, INCREASING AND DECREASING THE VOLUME OF BLOOD IN THE ARTERIES.
USING LIGHT TO TRACK BLOOD PRESSURE AND TUMOR TREATMENTS
If you light up the tip of your finger with a flashlight, you’ll see the phenomenon called diffusive glow. That’s what happens when all the cells and molecules that make up your finger absorb and scatter the steady beam of light in an instant.
“The light changes direction millions of times so that it turns into a diffuse red glow,” explains Associate Professor Darren Roblyer (BME, ECE). Understanding how light interacts with living cells and tissues is the foundation of his work.
Roblyer and his team are testing ways to monitor biological processes—like blood pressure, oxygen levels, and disease progression—with light waves. For example, studying the way different wavelengths create patterns when absorbed and scattered can tell Roblyer about the metabolic signals in a person’s blood. Over the past several years, he’s developed a blood pressure monitoring device that does not involve a cuff squeezing your arm, with the aim of getting a more accurate reading than the current, sometimes uncomfortable, options.
“This technology measures the optical effects of what happens when your heart beats,” says Roblyer, who’s also a member of the BU Photonics Center. Each time your heart beats, blood flow speeds up and then slows down, and, at the same time, arteries expand and contract, increasing and decreasing the volume of blood in the arteries. “We’re measuring both of those things, and we are extracting a whole lot of information from those waveforms and then using that to predict blood pressure.”
The technology, called speckle contrast optical spectroscopy, uses multiple wavelengths—from visible to near-infrared light
Darren Roblyer (BME, ECE)
In a study, Roblyer’s device took highly accurate, continuous blood pressure measurements.
(NIR), which is just past what our eyes can see—to monitor blood pressure. The device clips over the finger and straps around the wrist. In a recent study, the team found that the device took highly accurate, continuous blood pressure measurements on 30 individuals successfully over several weeks.
Roblyer is also testing a similar type of optical technology— measuring the absorption and scattering of light waves—for reading metabolic signals of cancer cells. He has been working with Naomi Ko, a BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine associate professor of medicine and a medical oncologist at Boston Medical Center (BMC), on developing a new tool for monitoring how well breast cancer tumors respond to chemotherapy or radiation treatment.
The metrics that their device measures—like the concentration and ratio of oxygenated and deoxygenated red blood cells— can be used to predict whether a tumor is likely to shrink. Ko and Roblyer have been testing the device in clinical settings and plan to continue analyzing its effectiveness. Eventually, Roblyer wants the device to be smaller and transportable, so that patients can use it at home and send the readings to their doctors without needing to schedule an appointment.
In fact, Roblyer’s team is working on a whole suite of other optical technologies, including a dialysis monitor for kidney disease treatment and a device for treating scleroderma.
A NEW JOINT SCHOLARSHIP IN PHOTONICS, FROM SPIE AND BU
Photonics got a boost at BU with a recent gift from SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, to the Boston University Photonics Center.
The $500,000 from SPIE will be doubled by BU to establish the SPIE-Boston University Scholarship in Photonics. Part of the SPIE Endowment Matching Program, the new annual scholarships will be available for up to two graduate students or one postdoctoral researcher at the BU Photonics Center who are exploring impactful areas of photonics research.
“We are enormously grateful for the opportunity to partner with SPIE in this endowment program to support graduate and postgraduate research scholarship at the frontiers of optics and
photonics,” says Professor Thomas Bifano (ME, MSE, BME, ECE), director of the center, which generates fundamental knowledge and develops innovative technology in the photonics field. “The Boston University Photonics Center has a long and proud history of collaboration with SPIE, including the sponsorship of SPIE events and an SPIE student chapter. Creation of this endowed fund will advance our shared commitment with SPIE to help train and support future leaders in the societally important fields of optics and photonics.”
Funds from the scholarship will include coverage of each recipient’s stipend, health benefits, and travel costs to present their work at an SPIE conference.
“This research is driven by collaboration,” says Roblyer. “We’ve assembled a multidisciplinary team, including engineers, physicists, physicians, nurses, hospital administrators, business and regulatory specialists, manufacturing experts, students—PhD, master’s, and undergraduate—as well as volunteers and patients. Each of these perspectives is essential for developing the technology and implementing it into the standard-of-care.”
“One of the most important things I think I do is, as we’re developing these technologies, we’re talking to a lot of physicians, understanding what their unmet needs are, and helping to understand whether our technologies could help,” Roblyer adds. “My hope for this work is to make a real impact in the lives of patients.”
Left to right, SPIE President Peter de Groot presents a check to the Photonics Center’s Ji-Xin Cheng and Tom Bifano.
FROM THE MOON, A BU-BUILT TELESCOPE SHOWS US SOLAR WIND
WE LIVE IN THIS BUBBLE, THIS MAGNETOSPHERE,” SAYS WALSH. “SOME DAYS, A LOT OF ENERGY BREAKS INTO THAT MAGNETIC BUBBLE. WE’RE TRYING TO UNDERSTAND HOW THAT PROCESS WORKS.”
On March 2, after traveling 238,855 miles from Cape Canaveral, a shiny, golden spacecraft touched down on the moon. Among the 10 aerospace instruments carried by the autonomous moon lander, a telescope pointed back at our home planet. The Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) was designed and built by Associate Professor Brian Walsh (ME, ECE) and his colleagues. It is the first BU-created device to ever land on another planetary body, and it captured the first-ever images of the boundary of Earth’s magnetic field.
Part of NASA’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, LEXI has given Earthlings an unprecedented view of our magnetosphere, the magnetic bubble that shields us from harmful radiation, deflecting the constant flow of solar wind and high-speed charged particles emanating from the sun.
Walsh began measuring X-ray signals in the atmosphere as a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in 2009. His team at BU received funding from NASA to develop the LEXI telescope in 2019. In the years since, the team—which includes faculty and students from BU’s Photonics Center and Center for Space Physics as well as the College of Engineering— worked hard choosing materials, doing the math to determine the ideal dimensions, adding electronics and computing systems, crafting specially engineered glass lenses, and testing for durability. The 24-pound telescope needed to withstand intense vibrations and temperature swings, and communicate seamlessly to the lab’s control room. The team collaborated with researchers from NASA Goddard, Johns Hopkins University, University of Miami, and the University of Leicester.
“The development of any spaceflight instrument is, by its nature, a convergent process,” says Walsh. “It requires a diverse set of expertise, with researchers in fields ranging from science and the space environment, mechanical design and dynamics, to sensitive analog electronics and radiation impacts.”
Brian Walsh (ME, ECE)
The device’s innovative optical lenses mimic lobster eyes— technology prototyped in the 1990s that was inspired by the way lobsters can see in dark, murky environments—that pick up even the faintest glowing X-ray signals, called soft X-rays. The crustacean-inspired lenses in LEXI were specially fitted to withstand space flight.
After the team completed LEXI and successfully tested it, they transported the device by truck to Firefly Aerospace’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, where it was installed in the Blue Ghost lander. After the launch and landing, Walsh and his students stayed connected to the telescope through the lander’s computer systems, receiving the X-ray signals that helped paint a picture of the boundary of Earth’s magnetic field.
Those X-rays are released when a charged atom emitted from the sun, like an oxygen ion, slams into a neutral particle, like hydrogen, which floats around in abundance at Earth’s outer atmosphere. When the particles collide, the oxygen ion steals an electron from the hydrogen, and that process releases an X-ray. LEXI recorded those invisible wavelengths of light, constantly present around our planet, for seven days. After that, the sun set on the moon. It is presumed that the icy temperatures—dipping as low as –208 degrees Fahrenheit—then disabled the lander and all its payloads permanently.
In that short window, LEXI transmitted data that will help answer “big outstanding questions,” Walsh says, like whether we can predict when and how Earth receives solar energy in the amounts that cause geomagnetic storms.
It’s unclear if those high-energy days are a result of changes in the solar wind, or if energy builds up and then penetrates the magnetosphere in one big burst, or if energy is absorbed gradually into the magnetosphere like a constant stream of wind. This is important to know. During big geomagnetic storms—like when the aurora borealis was visible in Massachusetts in October 2024—thousands of satellites suddenly need to be raised in their orbits, because the lower atmosphere becomes much more dense, dragging them down. Storms can also result in disturbances to radio communications, navigation technology, and aerospace systems. LEXI’s data will help inform models that can predict those days of extreme space weather and help experts prepare for them.
“We live in this bubble, this magnetosphere,” says Walsh. “Some days, a lot of energy breaks into that magnetic bubble. We’re trying to understand how that process works.”
RAMACHANDRAN APPOINTED EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF PREMIER OPTICS JOURNAL
In January, Distinguished Professor of Engineering Siddharth Ramachandran (ECE, Physics, MSE) assumed a role essential to the research community when he took over as editorin-chief of Optics Express, one of the premier peer-reviewed scientific journals in the field of optics and photonics. The role carries significant responsibility, including the management of an editorial board comprising 10 deputy editors and 110 associate editors, and a seat on the parent Optica Publishing Group Board of Editors.
Fortunately, Ramachandran is well prepared to take on the challenge, with 16 years of editorial experience in academic journals and a solid history of other leadership roles within his field, including chairing major conferences.
While Optics Express is already a leading journal, Professor Ramachandran has plenty of ideas to uphold that track record and make improvements at various levels, from small day-to-day processes to a much higher-level vision for the publication’s ongoing success. His primary goal is to maintain the journal’s key role in pushing the field of optics and photonics to new heights and supporting the researchers who drive that progression.
“To be invited to lead the first electronic journal of Optica, founded by Professor Joseph Eberly, a stalwart in our field, is a true honor,” says Ramachandran. “I hope to continue its stewardship with respect to maintaining its high standards, as well as its status as the journal of record for both academia and industry.”
Ramachandran, who is also ENG interim associate dean for research and faculty development, is perhaps best known for two groundbreaking papers in Science on structured light, or light beams that travel in twisting paths instead of straight lines. Ramachandran has shown that these corkscrew light beams can be used to transmit data over fiber optic cables 50 times more efficiently than current networks. If implemented, as he believes it could be within five years, Ramachandran’s findings might lead to a more sustainable internet.
“This is an extremely complex problem that requires a massive convergence in multiple planes and axes—scientists, engineers, planners,” says Ramachandran, who is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “Everything needs to come together.”
– A.J. KLEBER AND ANDREW THURSTON
The moon-bound device was designed and built at BU by a team of students and faculty from ENG, the Photonics Center, and the Center for Space Physics.
Siddharth Ramachandran (ECE, Physics, MSE)
YOU CAN INFER DISTANCE,” SAYS GOYAL. “THE ATMOSPHERE IS NOT ONLY ABSORBING LIGHT BUT ALSO EMITTING LIGHT, AS A FUNCTION OF WAVELENGTH, AND WE CAN MATHEMATICALLY MODEL THAT.”
USING THE LIGHT WE CAN’T SEE
When you look out your window at night, you expect to see objects—a tree, a neighbor’s house—illuminated by streetlamps or moonlight. If there were a power outage on a moonless night, you’d see only darkness.
That doesn’t mean there’s no light out there, though. “There is light,” says Professor Vivek Goyal (ECE). “It’s just at wavelengths that you can’t see with the naked eye.”
With the aid of an ordinary thermal camera or night vision goggles, you could see something—at least the outlines of nearby objects. But Goyal says a much richer sense of the surroundings can be gleaned from that invisible-to-us light, and his team is developing the more sophisticated data processing needed to do it. Someday, their 3D imaging technology might be used for mapping and navigation for autonomous vehicles, among other applications.
“You can infer distance,” says Goyal. “The atmosphere is not only absorbing light but also emitting light, as a function of wavelength, and we can mathematically model that. There’s different absorption at different wavelengths as light travels through the air, so light that’s traveled a longer distance has a different spectrum than light that was emitted very close to you.”
Goyal and colleagues have begun successfully picking up distance cues by passively measuring thermal radiation at these various wavelengths that are too long for the naked eye. Their sensor technology is passive in the sense that it detects light but doesn’t emit light.
“The work was initially funded by DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a US Department of Defense agency] to support autonomous navigation in the dark while remaining stealthy,” explains Goyal, who continued building upon the work
Vivek Goyal (ECE)
for more general applications after completing the defense project. “You can put lidar [a laser imaging, detection, and ranging system] on an autonomous vehicle, but lidar is not stealthy—it’s emitting light all the time.”
For Goyal, the work of traditional thermal imaging is almost “too easy,” he says. “A lot of the prior work was related to the Air Force, where they studied tracking a missile or an airplane— something much hotter than the atmosphere. We want to be able to use this absorption principle to do ranging [determining distances] for scenes where the objects are not necessarily hotter than the air at all—in fact, the objects could be colder than the air.”
In addition to mapping distances, Goyal’s team believes their passive 3D sensing methods might also determine the materials
of objects, air temperature, humidity, and gas concentrations—all of which could aid in navigation.
“We separate out the effects of material and temperature,” Goyal says. “So if an autonomous vehicle is navigating at night, and an obstacle is just about the same temperature as the road, it would look the same to an ordinary thermal camera, whereas our sensor would discern the difference and be able to navigate around it.”
The students and postdocs in Goyal’s lab hail from disciplines including computer science, materials science, electrical engineering, and computer engineering, and his colleagues include researchers at MIT, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Research is so social,” says Goyal. “A lot of it has to do with connecting with people with the same interests.”
Two thermal hyperspectral images of the same field at dusk show estimated distances (top) and temperatures (bottom).
AN ART OF ITERATION
A FORMER ENGINEER TURNS HER INNER REFLECTIONS INTO EXPERIMENTAL WORKS OF ART
BY PATRICK L. KENNEDY
Sirarpi Heghinian-Walzer (ENG’79,’82) with some of her artwork on display at Galaray House in Lexington, Mass.
hether it’s beet juice and onion peels on scraps of burlap and newspapers, or oils and acrylics on traditional canvas, Sirarpi Heghinian-Walzer (ENG’79,’82) uses whatever materials she thinks will work to make abstract expressionist art that speaks to the viewer.
“I use a lot of things that people might think are garbage,” she says. “That’s why I call it mixed media—it’s whatever’s within my reach.”
If something doesn’t work, she’ll paint over it and try again. She iterates, like the engineer she once was. But now, instead of designing mammogram machines and pacemakers, she is making art meant to convey universal emotions.
“I guess I’ve always been thinking out of both sides of the brain,” she says.
MANY LAYERS
Sirarpi Heghinian grew up in Aleppo, Syria, where her Armenian grandparents had fled from Turkey. She learned to speak Arabic as well as Armenian and Turkish, and took one year of English at a high-end private school—where her father was a chef—before immigrating to the United States at age 13 with her family, settling in Watertown, Massachusetts.
A gifted student, Heghinian skipped two grades and graduated from Watertown High School at 15. She enrolled at Boston University at 16, following in the footsteps of her sister, Sylva Heghinian Collins (GRS’77). Sirarpi began her BU studies as a premed major; despite teenage dabbling in graphic design, she didn’t consider art as a potential career. “Medicine was always the direction I was going in,” she says.
But when her mother fell ill with cancer, frequent visits to the hospital convinced Heghinian that a medical career was not for her, and she switched her major to biomedical engineering.
After graduation, Heghinian landed a job in the electro-optics department at Honeywell, where she designed mammogram technology. “I liked the challenge of solving complicated problems,” she says.
A different kind of complication arose when her work took her to the Middle East, where Heghinian wound up installing elec-
tro-optics systems on military tanks. “It was an experience I’ll never forget—good and bad,” she says. “As a biomedical engineer, I wanted to do some good in the world, and now I was working on tanks. It turned me off a bit.”
A NEW STAGE
She returned to engineering for medical applications when, now as HeghinianWalzer, she moved with her then-husband to 1980s West Berlin, where she designed pacemakers for the German firm Biotronik.
It was in Berlin that Heghinian-Walzer began taking art classes, eventually earning a BFA from Berlin’s Academy for the Fine Arts. “Basically, I needed to express myself differently,” she says. “I needed to voice my feelings, and this was my language now.” She began working on landscapes because she was chafing in West Berlin, an urban enclave largely cut off from the world at the time. “I noticed I was really missing places like Walden Pond,” she says.
This was when, while in the kitchen keeping an eye on her kids, HeghinianWalzer started grabbing beet juice, old homework, faded magazines, and other unorthodox materials to create her art. She likes to experiment, adding layer upon layer to her collages.
“When do you stop is always the challenge,” she says.
REPENT, REPAINT, REPEAT
Heghinian-Walzer returned to the US in 2000, settling in Lexington, Massachusetts, with a new partner. While consulting for small businesses on web development, branding, and marketing, she continued learning and making art, eventually exhibiting and selling her work. Her paintings and collages have been exhibited at Cove Gallery in Wellfleet, 51 Walden Gallery in Concord, and other respected venues.
The style that Heghinian-Walzer has developed leans heavily into the concept of “pentimento.” From the Italian word for repentance, in art it refers to the act of changing one’s mind, of painting a new layer atop a mistake and trying anew. To Heghinian-Walzer, those visible layers of materials can represent the layers of a life. “Loss and memory are very strong in my work,” she says.
For example, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, news of residents losing their homes and fleeing the traumatic experience gave Heghinian-Walzer flashbacks to the grim stories her father told about the atrocities committed by Turkish soldiers during the Armenian Genocide of 1915, which forced her family to take refuge in Syria. The resulting painting, Memory of New Orleans, of a white silhouette turning away from a turquoise flood, showed “the feeling of leaving everything behind,” she told an arts journalist.
Fittingly, in 2015 Heghinian-Walzer had a solo exhibition at the Armenian Museum of America in Watertown. She also founded and directs Art Without Borders, a nonprofit that seeks to protect artist rights and promote art’s power to create mutual respect among diverse cultures. “Through nonprofits and art, I’m being heard,” she says.
While some of her works evoke sadness with clusters of dark fragments, others depict wide-open, light-filled spaces, like beaches or meadows. “The landscapes are another way of healing,” Heghinian-Walzer says.
In some cases, her works contain both solitude and beauty. As a child in Syria, she was once caught in a sandstorm while walking home from school. “That feeling of being lost in the sand stayed with me.” Fast-forward to last November, when Heghinian-Walzer and a friend enjoyed an unseasonably warm day swimming off Singing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea. “There was a warm fog, and it was beautiful, but I thought if I swam out too far, nobody would see me. I wasn’t afraid, but it brought back the childhood memory of the sandstorm. Enough to make me say, ‘I have to put this on canvas.’”
Interlude 3, mixed media, by Sirarpi Heghinian-Walzer.
research
A New Type of RNA Could Revolutionize Vaccines and Cancer Treatments
WHEN A TEAM OF INTERDISCIPLINARY BU RESEARCHERS CREATED A NEW AND IMPROVED COVID VACCINE, AN ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY TURNED INTO AN UNEXPECTED SUCCESS
It all started in the lab. Two doctoral students, Joshua McGee (ENG’26) and Jack Kirsch (ENG’23), were creating and testing different types of RNA—strands of ribonucleic acid, built from chains of chemical compounds called nucleotides, that help carry out genetic instructions in cells. They were determined to see if RNA sequences crafted with small changes to their nucleotides can still work. After running dozens of experiments, they hit a dead end.
“At first, it was a failure,” McGee says.
Decades of research have uncovered the mysteries of RNA in living cells. Without it, our cells couldn’t perform fundamental tasks, like constructing other cells, carrying amino acids from one part of the cell to the other, or mounting immune responses to viruses.
But, more recently, scientists have figured out how to harness RNA to make treatments aimed at fighting genetic diseases and cancer. They’ve also learned how to use messenger RNA (mRNA) to make COVID-19 vaccines. The experiments that McGee and Kirsch perform are aimed at using RNA to deliver lifesaving drugs and create more effective vaccines than we have today.
Working alongside William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor Mark Grinstaff (BME, Chemistry, MSE, CAMED) and Associate Professor Wilson Wong (BME), they started talking about what to do next—and what to do with the chemical components left over from the initial experiments. They decided to focus on modifying the chemical structure of a lesser-known type of RNA—called self-amplifying RNA (saRNA)—which is manufactured in the lab and replicates itself multiple times in a cell to produce a higher number of the proteins it’s programmed to make.
The new method worked: Their modified saRNA was replicating itself in a petri dish.
“Our reaction to that was a lot of excitement, but also the normal scientist thinking, ‘Did we do this right?’” McGee says. “We went back to do it again and again. And we got the same results.”
“There is still plenty of work to be done to unveil all of the advantages of this technology over other existing RNA vaccine approaches.”
The results kicked off a yearlong research project that moved from Grinstaff’s chemistry lab to Wong’s genetics engineering lab to BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), where they tested their modified saRNA as a vaccine against the COVID-19 virus. They found that a lower dose of their new vaccine in mice protected them from the disease just as well as current mRNA vaccines. Their findings are published in Nature Biotechnology
It’ll be years of further testing before this vaccine can be approved for humans. Even though there is one type of saRNA vaccine— approved last year for use in Japan—the researchers hope their modified version will make the technology more appealing
to drug manufacturers, as well as overcome the challenges of using saRNA as a vaccine.
“The challenge with regular selfamplifying RNA is that there are two competing processes—the RNA is trying to make more and more protein, and at the same time the immune system is degrading it,” says Grinstaff. Standard mRNA COVID vaccines tell cells to produce a spike protein that mimics the real virus. That, in turn, causes the immune system to kick in and fight the virus. But an saRNA vaccine goes one step further by repeating those instructions to the cell over and over, making more of the machinery to create the spike proteins. With more proteins, you don’t need as high a dose, and the immune system remembers how to fight the virus over a longer period of time.
“So, the idea is that this could give you a long duration of protein expression, even when using a lower dose,” Grinstaff says.
Another challenge is that saRNA could create a much-too-strong reaction that can lead to uncomfortable side effects—worse than those of current COVID vaccines, which typically cause some people to develop a mild fever or aches.
Grinstaff, Wong, and the team collaborated closely with Florian Douam, a BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine assistant professor of virology, immunology, and microbiology and a core faculty member at NEIDL. He and his team performed a study—called a “viral
A NEW TEXTILE FOR FITNESS TRACKING TECH
MOLDING COMPLEX TISSUES WITH GALLIUM
A group of interdisciplinary Boston University researchers worked to investigate the promising technology of self-amplifying RNA as a way to deliver lifesaving drugs and create more effective vaccines.
challenge”—to evaluate if a COVID-19 vaccine built with the modified saRNA technology could protect mice more effectively against severe COVID-19 disease than earlier saRNA and mRNA vaccines.
“The viral challenge aspect was particularly important,” Douam says. “It exposed how a very low dose of this novel saRNA technology is able to protect mice against lethal disease much more effectively than traditional saRNA and mRNA COVID-19 vaccines at a similar dose.”
Douam says that the new vaccine, which incorporates modified nucleotides called m5C (5-methylcytidine), also triggered very low levels of inflammation upon vaccination comparable to mRNA vaccines.
“There is still plenty of work to be done to unveil all of the advantages of this technology over other existing RNA vaccine approaches,” Douam says.
But this was a promising start.
The next question is whether their modified saRNA can provide longer-lasting protection against virus infection compared to existing RNA-based vaccines at a similar dose.
MORE PROMISING TREATMENTS
Besides COVID vaccines, the team’s welltolerated saRNA could open the door for other types of treatments and gene therapy.
“At the end of the day, this is a proteinproducing system,” Wong says. “A genedelivery system.”
Wong points out that for a genetic disorder, saRNA could be programmed to produce a missing gene or replace a defective one. For treating lung, breast, and other cancers, “We can have it produce an anticancer drug for disease that requires a high dose and a lot of protein being made,” he says. “That’s why we’re really excited about our self-amplifying RNA technology—because we think we can
lower the dose that’s needed to enable some of these therapeutic applications. That’s how we envision it.”
Grinstaff recently received an inaugural Trailblazer Engineering Impact Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which comes with a $3 million grant, to continue exploring saRNA technology—something that can “fundamentally alter the genetic engineering paradigm,” according to the NSF.
“There’s so much work that we’re doing now to further understand what we have discovered,” says McGee, who is coadvised by Wong and Grinstaff. “There are a lot of publications out there that suggested research on saRNA would also fail. This made me realize that it’s okay to try things that other people think might fail, because, who knows, they could be wrong.”
— JESSICA COLAROSSI
Clockwise from back left: Wilson Wong, Jack Kirsch, Florian Douam, Joshua McGee, and Mark Grinstaff.
Big Federal Award, Tiny Living Factories
PART OF MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR, MULTI-INSTITUTION PROJECT, BU SYNTHETIC BIOLOGISTS TO ENGINEER CELLS TO PRODUCE DIABETES DRUG
Instead of a weekly needle jab, someday a yearly injection might be all that’s needed to treat type 2 diabetes. That annual shot—the goal of a large collaborative team that includes researchers from Boston University—would implant a tiny bioelectronic device that can manufacture up to a year’s supply of medication, making treatment easier and more affordable. The team of 18 investigators has been awarded up to $34 million from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to make that vision a reality within six years.
“This project is crazy ambitious,” says Associate Professor Wilson Wong (BME), who along with Professor Ahmad (Mo) Khalil (BME) will be responsible for the BU College of Engineering’s contribution to the project, RX On-site Generation Using Electronics (ROGUE). “The idea is, what if you could actually make the drug inside the patient? That’s never been done before.”
Wong, Khalil, and their students will work on identifying the optimal cell chassis to serve as a living pharmaceutical factory, and on developing and testing the gene circuit technology that will enable this tiny workshop to produce—on demand—the molecules that make up therapeutics such as Ozempic, which is used to treat type 2 diabetes, and Wegovy, which the FDA has approved to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death in adults with obesity.
“It’s pretty sophisticated genetic circuit engineering we have to build,” says Wong. “The cell has to be able to produce the drug, to be able to be regulated via electricity—via signals sent from your phone. It can actually measure and control how much of the drug is made. It has to be
very robust to last a year. And ultimately, it’s going to be a safe clinical product.”
Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease that affects 38 million people in the US alone. “It’s a big problem,” says Wong, “and so is the affordability of the medication, the logistics and the hassles and the expense of buying it and administering it every week all your life.” The ROGUE system would replace that hassle and expense with a low-cost, minimally invasive procedure at an outpatient clinic, providing continuous, adjustable therapy for a full year.
Led by Tzahi Cohen-Karni at CarnegieMellon University, the ROGUE project also includes collaborators from Georgia Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Rice University, University of California–Berkeley, the Mayo Clinic, and Bruder Consulting and Venture Group, encompassing backgrounds in medicine, synthetic biology, materials science, electrical engineering, and other fields.
“This project brings all this expertise together—cell engineering, miniature electronics, hydrogel materials,” says Wong. “It’s exciting. It’s ambitious, which I like. And it’s highly collaborative.”
— PATRICK L. KENNEDY
From left, Wilson Wong (BME) and Mo Khalil (BME).
Green Wins NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award
HONOR WILL SUPPORT HIGH-RISK PROJECT THAT COULD LEAD TO IMPROVED CANCER TREATMENTS AND OTHER THERAPIES
Before a new car rolls onto the road, engineers measure how it reacts to different forces, from passengers plonking into the seats to jarring collisions. Understanding the impact of these forces provides essential insights into the durability and effectiveness of the vehicle and its components—an approach taken for just about every new product, from cell phones to simple bottle flip-tops.
Now, Associate Professor Alexander Green (BME) wants to do the same kind of force measurement for biological cells, with the goal of one day improving cancer therapies.
Green hopes that by tracking the forces involved when cells interact with one another, like in cell-based cancer therapies, he can better control their behavior and pave the way for more potent disease treatments. It’s an out-there, novel idea that could fizzle—or change lives.
Green’s chances of success have received a major boost with a 2024 National Institutes of Health Director’s Transformative Research Award. Part of the NIH Common Fund’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, the award is given to researchers “proposing transformative projects that are inherently risky and untested but have the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms and may require very large budgets.”
Green is sharing the $7.2 million funding with two researchers from Yale University, Julien Berro and Xiaolei Su, and says their proposed cell forces project would typically be a tough one to win backing for—all prom-
ise with, so far, little proof that it’ll work.
“It’s a really important funding mechanism,” Green says of the award. “This kind of blue-sky research is super important— we’re pushing the frontiers.”
Only two other BU researchers have received the honor: Professor Béla Suki (BME) and Steve Ramirez (CAS’10), a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of psychological and brain sciences.
Green is the team’s ribonucleic acid (RNA) expert, bringing his knowledge of the molecules that help regulate cells and translate genetic instructions. He aims to make RNA-based sensors that monitor whether a force-detecting protein— designed by Yale’s Berro—is firing.
“The other aspect of the project is to not only detect forces, but to have the cell carry out some kind of response,” says Green, who’s also a member of the BU Biological Design Center. “So, we’re acting on that information to control cell behavior.”
In CAR-T cell cancer therapy, for example, a patient’s immune cells, although reengineered to fight the disease, will often run out of steam: The forces involved in the struggle exhaust them, explains Green. But, by influencing the
“The other aspect of the project is to not only detect forces, but to have the cell carry out some kind of response. So, we’re acting on that information to control cell behavior.”
cell’s behavior, they could push back its point of burnout and prolong the therapy’s effectiveness.
That innovative approach to improving healthcare technologies and therapies fits with Green’s broader research. He studies what’s happening in the depths of cells to build organic sensors, known as biomolecular control systems; create antimicrobial coatings; and make better and cheaper diagnostic tests for viruses and diseases—and even to predict the potential performance of athletes and soldiers.
“A lot of the stuff we’re working on is tool development,” he says. “I’m an engineer—I like tinkering with things and solving problems.”
The cell forces team initially connected through the Research Corporation for Science Advancement’s Scialog program, which also backed them with seed funding, allowing them to lay a foundation for the project and generate some preliminary data. Green says the graduate students in his lab—particularly McKayla Vlasity (ENG’26)—played an important role in those initial steps and will continue to be involved as the project progresses.
— ANDREW THURSTON
Alexander Green (BME)
Engineered Microwaves Might Fight Epilepsy, Pain, and Parkinson’s
TEAM LED BY CHENG AND YANG SUCCEEDS IN SUPPRESSING SEIZURECAUSING NEURONS
ABoston University team has discovered a new way of using microwaves to safely treat epilepsy and other neurological disorders. While it is still years away from clinical use, the technology was shown to reduce seizure activity in both in vivo and in vitro models of epilepsy, the team has reported in Science Advances. Developed under the direction of Moustakas Chair Professor of Photonics and Optoelectronics Ji-Xin Cheng (ECE, BME, MSE), and Professor Chen Yang (ECE, MSE, Chemistry), the device is a tiny microwave antenna implanted in the brain in a minimally invasive procedure.
“We are not cooking the brain,” says Cheng. The antenna, in the form of a split-ring resonator, receives a microwave from a handheld transmitter and inhibits the problematic neurons—those that are firing excessively—that cause a seizure. “We use a very low dose so as not to injure healthy tissues,” says Cheng.
With this method, the microwave is concentrated at the target site, selectively suppressing the individual nerve that is acting up. While the study focused on epilepsy, the researchers believe the technology can also be applied to Parkinson’s disease and even chronic pain.
“We want to block action potential so that seizure or pain can be temporarily stopped in a drug-free manner,” says Cheng. Meanwhile, with a volume of less than 1.8 millimeters, the receiver can be inserted in a procedure much less invasive than current methods of epilepsy treatment, which involve deep brain stimulation.
“Microwaves haven’t been explored much for neuromodulation,” says doctoral student Carolyn Marar (ENG’25), the study’s first author, pointing out that the device is implemented only where the effect is beneficial.
“Honestly, probably because it sounds scary. But our device is low power. It has no effect except at the site where it’s implemented. It’s a good middle ground because it has deep penetration and high spatial precision.”
“I originally became interested in neuromodulation because my grandfa-
ther had Parkinson’s—he died of it,” says Marar. “That’s been a driving force for me getting into this field.”
The team included students in biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, chemistry, and neuroscience. “This study is an excellent example of convergence of diverse expertise,” says Yang, colead of the team.
The team received clinical guidance from Dr. Ezra Cohen of the BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, who is also an expert at Children’s Hospital for development of the epilepsy model.
That convergent approach has been helpful, says Marar. “The project includes a lot of theoretical physics with the resonator, but also a lot of biology, working with neurons. As a biomedical engineer, it’s good to work with people specializing in those areas.”
— PATRICK L. KENNEDY
Ji-Xin Cheng (ECE, BME, MSE)
Chen Yang (ECE, MSE, Chemistry)
Held here by researcher Carolyn Marar (ENG’25), the split-ring resonator acts as an antenna that receives the microwave and concentrates it at the target site to suppress seizure activity.
New Textile for Smarter, Sturdier Fitness Tracking Tech
XIN ZHANG’S METAMATERIAL OVERCOMES SWEAT, SALT WATER, AND SECURITY CHALLENGES
Good news for data-conscious athletes and anyone else interested in their own health: A groundbreaking new textile metamaterial developed at Boston University promises to revolutionize the wearable fitness tracker industry, enabling more accurate data collection with greater flexibility. This metamaterial—a material designed to have properties not found in nature—can be patterned onto clothing to create a battery-free network of sensors, monitoring heart rate and other vital signs while blocking extraneous signals and maintaining function even when the textile is exposed to water (including salt water). The BU team, led by Distinguished Professor of Engineering Xin Zhang (ME, ECE, BME, MSE), published its findings in Nature Communications.
“Imagine a sophisticated network of sensors seamlessly integrated into your clothing, constantly tracking your body’s signals in real time,” says study coauthor Xia Zhu (ENG’26), a doctoral student in
Zhang’s lab. “Whether you’re pushing your limits during a marathon, swimming laps, or simply going about your daily routine, this network provides a wealth of information without interrupting your activities.”
The challenge with fitness tracking sensors currently on the market is the difficulty connecting them to a central device like a smartphone. Wireless technology such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are commonly used, but these present security risks and often drain the phone’s batteries. Near-field communication—the same technology that powers mobile payments—is a promising alternative, but it has limited range and is sensitive to environmental factors such as water and sweat.
To overcome these challenges, Zhang’s team—which also includes Ke Wu, a postdoctoral fellow in Zhang’s
lab; Xiaohang Xie, a graduate student in Zhang’s lab; and Stephan Anderson, a professor of radiology at the BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine—has designed a cutting-edge body-area network (BAN) composed of textile metamaterial patches crafted from coaxial cables (the same cables that bring you internet and TV signals). The patches can be seamlessly embroidered into clothing in any custom pattern, the researchers say.
“Our system enables the smart watch to continuously monitor physiological signals emitted from my left arm even when I am wearing the smart watch on my right wrist,” says Zhu. “The smart textile allows the signal to be easily transmitted through the smart clothing in the form of a surface wave. And such a signal stream remains robust and accurate even when I am swimming, taking a shower, or just running outdoors on a rainy day. That’s a very rare characteristic in the field of smart textiles.”
Zhang adds, “Having studied metamaterials for many years, I’m always eager to apply them to solve practical problems. It’s exciting to see our metamaterial technologies addressing real-world challenges in wearable technologies at a system level.”
The study was supported by BU’s Rajen Kilachand Fund for Integrated Life Sciences and Engineering.
— ENG STAFF
Xin Zhang (ME, ECE, BME, MSE)
Xia Zhu (ENG’26)
The team’s novel fitness tracker works even when submerged in water.
Designing a Vaccine That Helps the Most Vulnerable
WITH HARTWELL FUNDS, TEPLENSKY AIMS FOR A MORE POTENT SHOT AGAINST STREPTOCOCCUS PNEUMONIAE
While it doesn’t garner the headlines of other infectious respiratory diseases, pneumonia routinely sends kids to the hospital, especially children with compromised immune systems. And pneumonia is just one of the life-threatening diseases (along with meningitis and others) caused by the bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn).
Vaccines exist that target Spn, but they struggle to protect against all the variants of the bacteria that emerge, and they can require a four-vaccine series for substantial potency. “There’s a huge amount of room for improvement,” says Assistant Professor Michelle Teplensky (BME, MSE).
With an award from the Hartwell Foundation, Teplensky and colleagues are working on a new way to design a more powerful, versatile, and enduring Spn vaccine, protecting vulnerable children with just one shot.
A PANOPLY OF PARAMETERS
Every vaccine consists of two elements, Teplensky explains: a stimulator, which turns on an immune response; and a target—for example, a shred of dead virus or bacteria—which tells the immune system what to go after.
Both of those elements are subject to untold numbers of variables—their precise size and shape, the kind of target, how they are released, and more. Those parameters affect a vaccine’s reception in the body, Teplensky says, which might explain the disappointing success rate of various current vaccines: “No one takes all of these factors into consideration.”
But if the stimulator and target cues are highly variable, Teplensky believes—and her recent work shows—that also means they’re tunable.
This idea of a “pan-Spn ” response is a more sustainable long-term strategy to cover a broad spectrum of known and unknown serotypes (variants).
“ The goal of this work is to create a more potent and broad response with a single injection.”
BROADER TARGET, STRONGER SHOT
“What this project is all about is changing how we deliver those cues to an immune cell so that we can maximize that vaccine’s potency,” Teplensky says.
Using chemistry and nanotechnology, Teplensky and colleagues are creating synthetic DNA with novel shapes and structures. “We can make it 100 nanometers large or five nanometers large,” she says. “We can change all aspects of its appearance and structure.” Ultimately, the team aims to deliver a target that trains the immune system to react to a broader range of real Spn bacteria down the road.
That one versatile vaccine will mean fewer trips to the clinic for harried parents of babies and toddlers. “The current Spn regimen is up to something like four shots starting at an age of two months,” says Teplensky. “It becomes a little arduous. The goal of this work is to create a more potent and broad response with a single injection.”
COMBINING EXPERTISE TO FIND A SOLUTION
Teplensky’s collaborators include Professor of Medicine Joseph Mizgerd of the BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and director of the BU Pulmonary Center, as well as a clinical partner, Dr. Richard Malley, at Boston Children’s Hospital. “What my lab does is very much at the intersection of so many fields, including immunology and biomedical engineering as well as chemistry and nanotechnology, and this enables us to work with those at the forefronts of the disease biology and clinical interaction,” she says.
“It’s part of the values of our lab to think about the end user,” adds Teplensky. In this case, that means the very young—who are more inclined to get sick under the best of circumstances—and in particular immunocompromised kids, who need this help the most. “I don’t think it gets more meaningful than helping children who are vulnerable.”
— PATRICK L. KENNEDY
Michelle Teplensky (BME, MSE)
Toward an Equitable Clean Energy Transition
The Healey-Driscoll administration, UMass Lowell, and Boston University have launched the Clean Energy and Environment Legacy Transition (CELT) initiative, a new international partnership to advance an equitable energy transition in Massachusetts, empower communities, and train the next generation of climate leaders. The effort is backed by $5.7 million in funding from the Department of Energy Resources, and it brings together the state’s sustainability and education leaders across academia, industry, and government, as well as researchers at universities in Ireland.
Among its several key objectives, CELT aims to put equity at the forefront of decarbonization efforts to ensure local energy transitions benefit from the wealth of technical expertise and
academic knowledge available throughout Massachusetts. CELT will also champion geothermal energy projects as part of the state’s clean energy future, partnering with universities, industries, and communities. To do this, the initiative will help develop a diverse workforce with the specialized skills to facilitate implementation.
BU’s Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS) will lead data analysis for CELT, building on the University’s global leadership in data science to address some of society’s most pressing challenges. BU’s data analysis work will be led by three IGS associate directors: Principal Investigator and Associate Professor Emily Ryan (College of Engineering), Professor Cutler Cleveland (College of Arts & Sciences), and Associate Professor Patricia Fabian (School of Public Health).
“We are excited to work with the state to advance their goals around clean energy transitions,” says Ryan. “BU is a leader in data science, and this new partnership with the state gives us a great opportunity to apply our research and help our community move towards a more sustainable future.”
To kick-start this initiative over the next three years, BU students and faculty will play a key role in the state’s on-the-ground energy transformation. They will work
Levine Professorship for Tianyu Wang
Assistant Professor Tianyu Wang (ECE) has been honored with the 2024 Peter J. Levine Career Development Professorship, endowed by Peter J. Levine (ENG’83).
Wang combines physics and optical principles with computer science to gain insights on how to engineer better computing, sensing, and imaging systems—like figuring out how to deliver detailed deep-tissue medical images of the human brain.
directly with municipalities and community leaders to help them leverage vital data. This information will ensure the clean energy transition is inclusive and benefits everyone, guiding decisions such as where to locate energy infrastructure and which communities need the most support.
“CELT further attests to Massachusetts’ leadership on climate and clean energy, and Boston University is proud to bring our expertise in sustainability and data science to this research collaboration with the Healey-Driscoll administration and UMass Lowell,” says BU Provost and Chief Academic Officer Gloria Waters.
CELT will also support graduate student fellows conducting policy and data analysis for Massachusetts and clean energy planning and project implementation for municipalities. — IGS STAFF
“His work is important in pushing the physical limits of computation and the design of advanced sensing hardware,” says Wang’s nominator, Elise Morgan, ENG dean ad interim and Maysarah K. Sukkar Professor of Engineering Design and Innovation, and he is “already off to an excellent start” since joining Boston University in early 2024.
Four other BU faculty earned Career Development Professorships this year, including Brian Cleary, a Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences professor who also holds appointments in biology and biomedical engineering. The prestigious awards, given annually by BU’s Office of the Provost, recognize “talented junior educators emerging as future leaders within their respective fields.”
— JESSICA COLAROSSI
Tianyu Wang (ECE)
From left, Cutler Cleveland (Earth & Environment), Emily Ryan (ME, MSE), Patricia Fabian (Environmental Health).
research
An Innovative Tissue Engineering Method Explained
CHEN MOLDING COMPLEX TISSUES USING GALLIUM
From the shape of our hands to our network of blood vessels, the organization of natural structures holds the key to our health. Better understanding and replicating those designs could help unlock insights for more effective drug testing and the development of new therapeutics and organ replacements. Yet, that’s easier said than done with current fabrication technologies.
Now, Professor Christopher Chen (BME, MSE) and his team at ENG and the Harvard University Wyss Institute have invented a new approach, which they published in Nature. Here, Chen explains how his team’s research will enable advances in tissue engineering.
WHY IS BUILDING TISSUE A CHALLENGE?
There are two main hurdles. The materials themselves are incredibly fragile, and there is not a one-size-fits-all process.
HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THESE CHALLENGES?
Inventing a single process that can handle the fragile materials and can build well at different scales is a hurdle. We wondered, could we decouple these two problems?
First, we examined building the geometry, the shape, using any material we wanted. Then, we copied the geometry over to the fragile biological material through molding. This approach allows us to build tissue successfully in many different shapes, using soft materials.
HOW DO YOU COPY A CELL’S GEOMETRY?
First, the desired shape is generated using fabrication processes and materials designed for patterning. Gallium is then used to form a solid metal cast of the shape. Next, the desired biomaterial is polymerized around the gallium cast. Finally, gallium is melted and removed cleanly, leaving behind an intact biomaterial scaffold. Cells can then be added to this scaffold and cultured to form tissue architectures.
WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO USE GALLIUM?
It is solid at room temperature, so it can be handled easily, and it works well as a casting material. But what makes gallium so special is that it is biocompatible and can be melted at cell-friendly, low temperatures. So, it is easy to extract gallium without destroying a delicate mold. Better yet, gallium can be switched to a high surface tension state, which means that it can easily be triggered to pump itself out of confinement. This process is called capillary pumping, the “CAPE” of “ESCAPE” (engineered sacrificial capillary pumps for evacuation).
WHAT STRUCTURES HAVE YOU BUILT USING ESCAPE?
We started with vascular forms because blood vessel networks feature many different length scales. Engineering the vascular tree (and its hierarchies) is a well-known challenge in the field of biological engineering.
Our blood vessel demonstrations include trees with many branches, including dead ends and portions that experience fluid flow. This allows us to model a range of healthy structures as well as diseased abnormalities.
Another approach involves independent tissue networks that are interwoven with each other. Most tissues feature not one, but many distinct networks that come near each other, yet are not in direct contact. These networks are lined with different cells. To showcase this, we fabricated interwoven blood and lymphatic networks.
Finally, vascular networks nourish other cells within a tissue. To capture this, we built cavities packed with cardiac cells that have high nutrient needs that were met with blood vessels in close proximity.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR ESCAPE?
We envision using ESCAPE with new cell types and new shapes representative of different organs. We also want to use it in organoid cultures. Then, we plan to expand to more materials beyond the three we tried in this research.
With this research, we have the basic design rules in place to predict the reliability of ESCAPE. Simulating the capillary pumping process will allow us to test different designs computationally in advance.
— BU PR
Christopher Chen (BME, MSE)
Viewed through a microscope, a gallium cast of interwoven networks used in the Chen team’s ESCAPE process.
dean’s leadership advisory board
Omar Ali ’96
Director of Operations, Petra Engineering Industries Co.
Carla Boragno
Former SVP, Global Head of Engineering & Facilities, Pharma Technical Operations, Roche/Genentech
Tye Brady ’90
Chief Technologist, Amazon Robotics
Deborah Caplan ’90
Former Executive VP, Human Resources & Corporate Services, NextEra Energy
Vanessa Feliberti ’93
Corporate VP, M365 Services Platform Engineering, Microsoft
Mikhail Gurevich ’07, Questrom’12 Managing Partner, Dominion Capital
Anand Krishnamurthy ’92,’96 Angel Investor
Ezra Kucharz ’90
Chief Business & Investment Officer, Maximum Effort
Abhijit Kulkarni ’93,’97
COO, Cellino Biotech Inc.
Antoinette Leatherberry ’85
Principal (Retired), Deloitte Consulting Trustee, Boston University
Daniel Maneval ’82
Nonclinical Biopharma Consultant
Kathleen McLaughlin ’87
Chief Sustainability Officer, Walmart Inc. President, Walmart Foundation
Manuel Mendez ’91 CEO, AliveDx
Rao Mulpuri ’92,’96
Former CEO, View Inc.
Girish Navani ’91
Co-Founder and CEO, eClinicalWorks
Nirva Kapasi Patel ’00
Exec. Dir., Animal Law & Policy, Harvard Law School
Former Vice President of Manufacturing and Logistics, General Dynamics Mission Systems
Emeritus members include John Abele; Roger Dorf ‘70; Joseph Healey ‘88; Venkatesh Narayanamurti; Richard Reidy, Questrom’82; and John Tegan ‘88
Boston University College of Engineering
Elise Morgan
dean ad interim
Solomon R. Eisenberg
senior associate dean for academic programs
Coralie Eggeling
assistant dean for development & alumni relations
John White
biomedical engineering chair
Michael Seele director of communications
Patrick L. Kennedy managing editor
Boston University College of Engineering
Siddharth Ramachandran
interim associate dean for research and faculty development
Tom Little
associate dean for educational initiatives
College of Engineering
Richard Lally senior associate dean for finance and administration
Pamela Audeh
assistant dean for outreach & diversity
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At the Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC), doctoral student Leo Zamora works on a tiny segment of a medical device for heart surgeries. EPIC is celebrating its tenth year in operation. See p. 14 inside.
